Proposal for Modernized Lottery Odds (with FAQ)

[Tyler]

Totally on board

And will throw my hat in the ring for Lotto Mod, as a GM who never has FRPs you know the odds will never be biased

Vouch. He has traded 16/21 possible Spurs firsts according my calculations. Tied with myself and Nav for people who hate their own picks the most

[quady]

I liked when ties were broken by team name reverse alphabetical order

[Joe]

Doing this for the 2019 draft kinda completely fucks teams - like yours truly - that decided to tank during this period; that is, making this change with zero notice is no bueno (it also heavily benefits teams that are wrapping up their tanks now and could land in the 5-13 lotto spots). Like in real professional sports, and as we have done in other major rule changes (e.g., RFA restrictions) there should typically be a delayed fuse on major strategic rule changes so that teams can adjust accordingly in time. But I'm down to pick a draft in the future where we start to do this, provided it's possible with FBB. 2022? 3 seasons feels reasonable and is roughly what we did for RFA stuff?

[Merv]

Doing this for the 2019 draft kinda completely fucks teams - like yours truly - that decided to tank during this period; that is, making this change with zero notice is no bueno (it also heavily benefits teams that are wrapping up their tanks now and could land in the 5-13 lotto spots). Like in real professional sports, and as we have done in other major rule changes (e.g., RFA restrictions) there should typically be a delayed fuse on major strategic rule changes so that teams can adjust accordingly in time. But I'm down to pick a draft in the future where we start to do this, provided it's possible with FBB. 2022? 3 seasons feels reasonable and is roughly what we did for RFA stuff?

Real life NBA did 2 years. With how much we turn over rosters and how every tanker runs 1 year contracts, I think changing for the 2020 draft would be more than fine. It’s not remotely similar to real life in terms of tearing down a roster etc. But if everyone feels the 2020 draft is impossibly too soon, mimicking the NBA’s 2 drafts until change should be fine I’d think.

[Joe]

Doing this for the 2019 draft kinda completely fucks teams - like yours truly - that decided to tank during this period; that is, making this change with zero notice is no bueno (it also heavily benefits teams that are wrapping up their tanks now and could land in the 5-13 lotto spots). Like in real professional sports, and as we have done in other major rule changes (e.g., RFA restrictions) there should typically be a delayed fuse on major strategic rule changes so that teams can adjust accordingly in time. But I'm down to pick a draft in the future where we start to do this, provided it's possible with FBB. 2022? 3 seasons feels reasonable and is roughly what we did for RFA stuff?

Real life NBA did 2 years. With how much we turn over rosters and how every tanker runs 1 year contracts, I think changing for the 2020 draft would be more than fine. It’s not remotely similar to real life in terms of tearing down a roster etc. But if everyone feels the 2020 draft is impossibly too soon, mimicking the NBA’s 2 drafts until change should be fine I’d think.

I think the more important precedent is what we did for the last big strategic rule change for rebuilding teams, which was RFA. I think we started the clock on the change (every third year rule) 3 seasons from when we voted. Easy for a competing team to say 2020 is fine, as it has no impact on your teambuilding strategy. Most tanks take a few seasons (some people have been tanking for like 6 or 7, which I agree is not a good thing), and I just started mine, so it obviously has a significant impact on me. 2022 good with me

[Merv]

Doing this for the 2019 draft kinda completely fucks teams - like yours truly - that decided to tank during this period; that is, making this change with zero notice is no bueno (it also heavily benefits teams that are wrapping up their tanks now and could land in the 5-13 lotto spots). Like in real professional sports, and as we have done in other major rule changes (e.g., RFA restrictions) there should typically be a delayed fuse on major strategic rule changes so that teams can adjust accordingly in time. But I'm down to pick a draft in the future where we start to do this, provided it's possible with FBB. 2022? 3 seasons feels reasonable and is roughly what we did for RFA stuff?

Real life NBA did 2 years. With how much we turn over rosters and how every tanker runs 1 year contracts, I think changing for the 2020 draft would be more than fine. It’s not remotely similar to real life in terms of tearing down a roster etc. But if everyone feels the 2020 draft is impossibly too soon, mimicking the NBA’s 2 drafts until change should be fine I’d think.

I think the more important precedent is what we did for the last big strategic rule change for rebuilding teams, which was RFA. I think we started the clock on the change (every third year rule) 3 seasons from when we voted. Easy for a competing team to say 2020 is fine, as it has no impact on your teambuilding strategy. Most tanks take a few seasons (some people have been tanking for like 6 or 7, which I agree is not a good thing), and I just started mine, so it obviously has a significant impact on me. 2022 good with me

I don’t think it has to do with competing or not, another tanker in your same division thought it’s worth implementing this season. I just don’t see how the strategy really changes? You try to suck and get a high pick. Real life teams do it every year. Your odds improve if you randomly win a few more games because you tried to find out if Dion Waiters has any utility. Your odds decrease for playing guys like Edward Sedran vs in the past. I’m totally open to 3 years if it’s absolutely required, but the argument doesn’t seem to hold enough water when the real life multi billion dollar business only went 2 drafts before implementation.

[Tyler]

I think some of the most exciting times in league history have come from picks jumping (DMo and Bron, Pankin and KAT, etc.). Think this will add more chaos and chaos is fun

[Joe]

Real life NBA did 2 years. With how much we turn over rosters and how every tanker runs 1 year contracts, I think changing for the 2020 draft would be more than fine. It’s not remotely similar to real life in terms of tearing down a roster etc. But if everyone feels the 2020 draft is impossibly too soon, mimicking the NBA’s 2 drafts until change should be fine I’d think.

I think the more important precedent is what we did for the last big strategic rule change for rebuilding teams, which was RFA. I think we started the clock on the change (every third year rule) 3 seasons from when we voted. Easy for a competing team to say 2020 is fine, as it has no impact on your teambuilding strategy. Most tanks take a few seasons (some people have been tanking for like 6 or 7, which I agree is not a good thing), and I just started mine, so it obviously has a significant impact on me. 2022 good with me

I don’t think it has to do with competing or not, another tanker in your same division thought it’s worth implementing this season. I just don’t see how the strategy really changes? You try to suck and get a high pick. Real life teams do it every year. Your odds improve if you randomly win a few more games because you tried to find out if Dion Waiters has any utility. Your odds decrease for playing guys like Edward Sedran vs in the past. I’m totally open to 3 years if it’s absolutely required, but the argument doesn’t seem to hold enough water when the real life multi billion dollar business only went 2 drafts before implementation.

The other tanker in my division you're referencing has been tanking for several season and has already drafted 3 top 10 picks plus several others, and will probably not have a good chance at a top 3 lotto odds after this year anyways as a result (not currently top 3 either, for that matter). I would not consider him to be in an identical situation. The strategy to suck doesn't change once you're tanking - but the decision to tank obviously does, which is why penalizing teams that just made that decision this season (by worsening their odds at the top pick) is not fair.

I don't think the real life NBA's standard of 2 years in advance or how much money real life teams are worth is of much relevance at all (especially because most real life GMs definitely knew well before 2 years in advance that this was a possibility, and in real life teams that truly bottom out in a tank are penalized by the league or fire their front offices). In contrast, the standard for SLN rule changes is very obviously relevant, as this is how long we previously determined GMs would be allowed to have to adjust their team building strategies. Seems like a pretty cut and dry situation tbh, we literally have a perfect precedent from another time the same exact group of people made a very similar decision on rules with the exact same goal (de-incentivize tanking and make team building more dynamic).

To be clear, I support the rule change in principle! Just the timing of 2019 or 2020 seems very much against our well-defined precedent. 2022 should be the start (unless we did 2 years for RFA, but I'm pretty sure it was 3).

[Matt]

Real life NBA did 2 years. With how much we turn over rosters and how every tanker runs 1 year contracts, I think changing for the 2020 draft would be more than fine. It’s not remotely similar to real life in terms of tearing down a roster etc. But if everyone feels the 2020 draft is impossibly too soon, mimicking the NBA’s 2 drafts until change should be fine I’d think.

I think the more important precedent is what we did for the last big strategic rule change for rebuilding teams, which was RFA. I think we started the clock on the change (every third year rule) 3 seasons from when we voted. Easy for a competing team to say 2020 is fine, as it has no impact on your teambuilding strategy. Most tanks take a few seasons (some people have been tanking for like 6 or 7, which I agree is not a good thing), and I just started mine, so it obviously has a significant impact on me. 2022 good with me

I don’t think it has to do with competing or not, another tanker in your same division thought it’s worth implementing this season. I just don’t see how the strategy really changes? You try to suck and get a high pick. Real life teams do it every year. Your odds improve if you randomly win a few more games because you tried to find out if Dion Waiters has any utility. Your odds decrease for playing guys like Edward Sedran vs in the past. I’m totally open to 3 years if it’s absolutely required, but the argument doesn’t seem to hold enough water when the real life multi billion dollar business only went 2 drafts before implementation.

I tend to agree with Joe, I think the purpose of this rule is to meaningfully change the strategy such that people don't have the same outsized incentive to bottom out, right? I don't think you can have it both ways. Also, multi-billion dollar businesses didnt need more lead time exactly because they're multi-billion dollar businesses - they already had an incentive to not fully bottom out, whereas SLN franchises have no such incentive.

On the whole am definitely down for this. I don't think it's fair to implement it without fair warning (probably around 3 seasons) because people have committed to team building strategies based on the previous rules, so changing the rules without warning seems unfair to me.

The one downside I'd include here is that I think this change has the possibility to basically eradicate one of the most tried-and-true team building strategies. I think the pro-argument is that that team building strategy is bad for the league, so it's good that we're eradicating it, which I get - but the anti-argument is that that strategy is easier to execute and this is only going to further the skill gap (to the degree to which you believe one exists) between the best GMs and the not-as-good GMs

[Jesse]

FBB has its own lottery function so it would require manual rework of team picks by ashes.